“I’m not going to go bankrupt or go running for the hills,” she says. “If there is money to be paid, it can be and will be. This has never been about money. It’s been about restoring my reputation, and that I feel has been achieved.

“An independent judge found that I had never been dishonest. That’s all I wanted to hear.”

But the tribunal raised questions about the BBC’s role in the affair, the most significant of which, to Ms Ackroyd, is why it terminated her contract when the tax people began conducting what she understood to be a routine enquiry – especially given that around 100 other presenters awaiting judgements in similar cases are understood to be still on air.

HMRC now considers personal service companies to be tax loopholes, though it apparently did not at the time Ms Ackroyd signed hers. That was when the BBC poached her, at the second attempt, from ITV’s rival Calendar, because her name had appeared at the top of a survey in which viewers were asked what was most likely to make them watch.

“I was never offered a staff contract. It was never discussed,” says Ms Ackroyd, in the immaculate, sprawling cottage on the moors above Huddersfield to which she moved a year ago.

“I signed the only contract I was offered, in good faith and I had no reason to think that it was anything other than a true freelance contract drawn up by the BBC’s legal department.

“Look, I don’t have an offshore company, I never invested in films – the case is as straightforward as it seems.”

The contract still had six months to run when she was taken off screen.